World News - Space Shuttle Discovery Lifts Off for First Night Launch in 4 Years

Discovery lit up the sky late Saturday, blazing off for the first nighttime space shuttle launch in four years the latest step in NASA's ambitious schedule to complete the international space station. The shuttle's fiery ascent turned night into day for spectators at the Kennedy Space Center. A cloudy sky with blustery winds earlier in the day gave way to clear skies and a gentle breeze at launch time. "I think we have five people who just haven't stopped smiling yet," commander Mark Polansky said after Discovery reached space. The mission is one leg of a three-year race to finish construction on the orbiting outpost before shuttles are retired in 2010. Low clouds forced the space agency to scrub a launch attempt Thursday night during a countdown that ran down to the wire. Managers decided not to try again Friday because the forecast looked even worse. ... http://abcnews.go.com

The U.S. Congress on Saturday passed a bill to improve U.S. preparedness for bioterrorism or other health crises, in part by accelerating development of new vaccines and drugs. The bill, sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) and North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr, was one of a number of bills passed by Congress before adjourning Saturday morning and sent to President George W. Bush. "With this bill, we take many important steps to increase our preparedness and response capabilities for public health emergencies by increasing our medical surge capacity, strengthening our public health infrastructure, and clarifying the responsibilities of federal officials," Kennedy said. Many experts have warned that the United States is poorly prepared to respond to a terrorism attack involving germ warfare agents, like anthrax or small pox, or to potential pandemics like bird flu. The measure would provide $1 billion ...http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061209/pl_nm/usa_bioterrorism_dc

Saudi Arabia's king warned Saturday that all of the Middle East is threatened by escalating conflicts around the region, from spiraling sectarian violence in Iraq to rising tensions in Lebanon to fighting among Palestinians. "Our Arab region is surrounded by dangers," King Abdullah said at the opening of a summit for leaders of the oil-rich Arab nations around the Persian Gulf. "It is like a keg of gunpowder waiting for a spark to explode." Palestinian factions are fighting each other, and Iraq is slipping into "the darkness of strife and mad struggle," a danger that also looms over Lebanon's diverse communities, he said in a speech before the leaders began a closed session. The two-day meeting of the six Gulf Cooperation Council nations is focusing on how to head off wider strife exploding from those conflicts or the nuclear standoff between a defiant Iran and the West. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2713428

The clues were everywhere. A young woman lay dead in a burned cabin at a church camp, while her father survived.Most of the lessons taught to budding fire investigators stood out at the scene. The local experts — the county fire marshal, a state-hired fire analyst, a chemist — spoke without hesitation that it all proved arson — and murder.No one questioned their conclusion. It was a textbook case, and the father, Han Tak Lee, was dealt a guilty verdict and a life sentence.Except the textbooks were wrong. Within a few years of Lee's conviction, scientific studies smashed decades of earlier, widely accepted beliefs about how fires work and the telltale trail they leave behind.Today, fire investigators are taught that the clues relied upon in the 1989 investigation of the cabin fire don't prove anything more than an accident....http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-09-arson-convictions_x.htm?csp=34

Authorities evacuated nearby houses as a precaution following the 1:30 p.m. blast. Fire department, police and paramedics were responding, although it was not immediately known if there were any injuries."All I heard was a big boom," said neighbor Holly Ache. "My whole house just shook. My windows broke. I went out the front door and I looked down the street and the houses were gone. They blew up."...http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,235701,00.html

It'll be cheaper to build a permanent moon base and keep it running, than it will be to get to the moon. Just don't ask how much, NASA's boss says. The U.S. space agency's newly unveiled grand plan for a continually staffed lunar outpost starting around 2024 doesn't come with a similarly grand price tag. It doesn't come with a price tag at all. "You ask what things will cost, I don't know yet," said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, a detail-oriented engineer. "We just rolled out a very preliminary architecture." Griffin's lack of specifics is partly because NASA is budgeting its large cosmic construction projects differently, more "pay as you go" than "get there at all costs." It's a departure that outsiders call either a brilliant way to avoid cost overruns and sticker shock or a blank check that will end up squeezing taxpayers....http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2713432